6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

#3. You Hate Yourself Because You Don't Do Anything

"So, what, you're saying that I should pick up a book on how to get girls?"

Only if step one in the book is "Start making yourself into the type of person girls want to be around."

Getty"Come ooooon. I know I hid some vodka in here somewhere."

Because that's the step that gets skipped -- it's always "How can I get a job?" and not "How can I become the type of person employers want?" It's "How can I get pretty girls to like me?" instead of "How can I become the type of person that pretty girls like?" See, because that second one could very well require giving up many of your favorite hobbies and paying more attention to your appearance, and God knows what else. You might even have to change your personality.

"But why can't I find someone who just likes me for me?" you ask. The answer is because humans need things. The victim is bleeding, and all you can do is look down and complain that there aren't more gunshot wounds that just fix themselves?

Here's another video (NSFW):

Everyone who watched that video instantly became a little happier, although not all for the same reasons. Can you do that for people? Why not? What's stopping you from strapping on your proverbial thong and cape and taking to your proverbial stage and flapping your proverbial penis at people? That guy knows the secret to winning at human life: that doing ... whatever you call that ... was better than not doing it.

"But I'm not good at anything!" Well, I have good news -- throw enough hours of repetition at it and you can get sort of good at anything. I was the world's shittiest writer when I was an infant. I was only slightly better at 25. But while I was failing miserably at my career, I wrote in my spare time for eight straight years, an article a week, before I ever made real money off it. It took 13 years for me to get good enough to make the New York Times best-seller list. It took me probably 20,000 hours of practice to sand the edges off my sucking.

Don't like the prospect of pouring all of that time into a skill? Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the sheer act of practicing will help you come out of your shell -- I got through years of tedious office work because I knew that I was learning a unique skill on the side. People quit because it takes too long to see results, because they can't figure out that the process is the result.

The bad news is that you have no other choice. If you want to work here, close.

Because in my non-expert opinion, you don't hate yourself because you have low self-esteem, or because other people were mean to you. You hate yourself because you don't do anything. Not even you can just "love you for you" -- that's why you're miserable and sending me private messages asking me what I think you should do with your life.

GettyStep One: Get up.

Do the math: How much of your time is spent consuming things other people made (TV, music, video games, websites) versus making your own? Only one of those adds to your value as a human being.

And if you hate hearing this and are responding with something you heard as a kid that sounds like "It's what's on the inside that matters!" then I can only say ...

#2. What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do

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Being in the business I'm in, I know dozens of aspiring writers. They think of themselves as writers, they introduce themselves as writers at parties, they know that deep inside, they have the heart of a writer. The only thing they're missing is that minor final step, where they actually fucking write things.

But really, does that matter? Is "writing things" all that important when deciding who is and who is not truly a "writer"?

For the love of God, yes.

GettyI've known "writers" who produced less content than what's on this woman's grocery list.

See, there's a common defense to everything I've said so far, and to every critical voice in your life. It's the thing your ego is saying to you in order to prevent you from having to do the hard work of improving: "I know I'm a good person on the inside." It may also be phrased as "I know who I am" or "I just have to be me."

Don't get me wrong; who you are inside is everything -- the guy who built a house for his family from scratch did it because of who he was inside. Every bad thing you've ever done has started with a bad impulse, some thought ricocheting around inside your skull until you had to act on it. And every good thing you've done is the same -- "who you are inside" is the metaphorical dirt from which your fruit grows.

GettyNotice how the camera is pointed up, and not at the base of the tree?

But here's what everyone needs to know, and what many of you can't accept:

"You" are nothing but the fruit.

Nobody cares about your dirt. "Who you are inside" is meaningless aside from what it produces for other people.

Inside, you have great compassion for poor people. Great. Does that result in you doing anything about it? Do you hear about some terrible tragedy in your community and say, "Oh, those poor children. Let them know that they are in my thoughts"? Because fuck you if so -- find out what they need and help provide it. A hundred million people watched that Kony video, virtually all of whom kept those poor African children "in their thoughts." What did the collective power of those good thoughts provide? Jack fucking shit. Children die every day because millions of us tell ourselves that caring is just as good as doing. It's an internal mechanism controlled by the lazy part of your brain to keep you from actually doing work.

Getty"I just wanted to tell you that you're in my thoughts. Good luck -- let me know if that cured you."

How many of you are walking around right now saying, "She/he would love me if she/he only knew what an interesting person I am!" Really? How do all of your interesting thoughts and ideas manifest themselves in the world? What do they cause you to do? If your dream girl or guy had a hidden camera that followed you around for a month, would they be impressed with what they saw? Remember, they can't read your mind -- they can only observe. Would they want to be a part of that life?

Because all I'm asking you to do is apply the same standard to yourself that you apply to everyone else. Don't you have that annoying Christian friend whose only offer to help anyone ever is to "pray for them"? Doesn't it drive you nuts? I'm not even commenting on whether or not prayer works; it doesn't change the fact that they chose the one type of help that doesn't require them to get off the sofa. They abstain from every vice, they think clean thoughts, their internal dirt is as pure as can be, but what fruit grows from it? And they should know this better than anybody -- I stole the fruit metaphor from the Bible. Jesus said something to the effect of "a tree is judged by its fruit" over and over and over. Granted, Jesus never said, "If you want to work here, close." No, he said, "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

Getty"And then a buffalo will stare stupidly into your soul while slowly chewing grass and softly farting."

The people didn't react well to being told that, just as the salesmen didn't react well to Alec Baldwin telling them that they needed to grow some balls or resign themselves to shining his shoes. Which brings us to the final point ...

#1. Everything Inside You Will Fight Improvement

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The human mind is a miracle, and you will never see it spring more beautifully into action than when it is fighting against evidence that it needs to change. Your psyche is equipped with layer after layer of defense mechanisms designed to shoot down anything that might keep things from staying exactly where they are -- ask any addict.

So even now, some of you reading this are feeling your brain bombard you with knee-jerk reasons to reject it. From experience, I can say that these seem to come in the form of ...

*Intentionally Interpreting Any Criticism as an Insult

"Who is he to call me lazy and worthless! A good person would never talk to me like this! He wrote this whole thing just to feel superior to me and to make me feel bad about my life! I'm going to think up my own insult to even the score!"

*Focusing on the Messenger to Avoid Hearing the Message

"Who is THIS guy to tell ME how to live? Oh, like he's so high and mighty! It's just some dumb writer on the Internet! I'm going to go dig up something on him that reassures me that he's stupid, and that everything he's saying is stupid! This guy is so pretentious, it makes me puke! I watched his old rap video on YouTube and thought his rhymes sucked!"

Getty"When you get to where I am in life, you feel free to give me advice! Until then, you're nothing but meat and guesses."

*Focusing on the Tone to Avoid Hearing the Content

"I'm going to dig through here until I find a joke that is offensive when taken out of context, and then talk and think only about that! I've heard that a single offensive word can render an entire book invisible!"

*Revising Your Own History

"Things aren't so bad! I know that I was threatening suicide last month, but I'm feeling better now! It's entirely possible that if I just keep doing exactly what I'm doing, eventually things will work out! I'll get my big break, and if I keep doing favors for that pretty girl, eventually she'll come around!"

*Pretending That Any Self-Improvement Would Somehow Be Selling Out Your True Self

"Oh, so I guess I'm supposed to get rid of all of my manga and instead go to the gym for six hours a day and get a spray tan like those Jersey Shore douchebags? Because THAT IS THE ONLY OTHER OPTION."

Getty"Way to leave 'the hood' behind, asshole. New house or not, you'll always be white trash!"

And so on. Remember, misery is comfortable. It's why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort.

Also, courage. It's incredibly comforting to know that as long as you don't create anything in your life, then nobody can attack the thing you created.

It's so much easier to just sit back and criticize other people's creations. This movie is stupid. That couple's kids are brats. That other couple's relationship is a mess. That rich guy is shallow. This restaurant sucks. This Internet writer is an asshole. I'd better leave a mean comment demanding that the website fire him. See, I created something.

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create -- be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship -- you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they'll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career.

Just remember, they're only expressing their own fear, since trashing other people's work is another excuse to do nothing. "Why should I create anything when the things other people create suck? I would totally have written a novel by now, but I'm going to wait for something good, I don't want to write the next Twilight!" As long as they never produce anything, their work will forever be perfect and beyond reproach. Or if they do produce something, they'll make sure they do it with detached irony. They'll make it intentionally bad to make it clear to everyone else that this isn't their real effort. Their real effort would have been amazing. Not like the shit you made.

Read our article comments -- when they get nasty, it's always from the same angle: Cracked needs to fire this columnist. This asshole needs to stop writing. Don't make any more videos. It always boils down to "Stop creating. This is different from what I would have made, and the attention you're getting is making me feel bad about myself."

Don't be that person. If you are that person, don't be that person any more. This is what's making people hate you. This is what's making you hate yourself.

GettyWhat are you going to do with it? Hunt witches or kick off the Olympics?

So how about this: one year. The end of 2015, that's our deadline. Or a year from whenever you read this. While other people are telling you "Let's make a New Year's resolution to lose 15 pounds this year!" I'm going to say let's pledge to do fucking anything -- add any skill, any improvement to your human tool set, and get good enough at it to impress people. Don't ask me what -- hell, pick something at random if you don't know. Take a class in karate, or ballroom dancing, or pottery. Learn to bake. Build a birdhouse. Learn massage. Learn a programming language. Film a porno. Adopt a superhero persona and fight crime. Start a YouTube vlog. Write for Cracked.

But the key is, I don't want you to focus on something great that you're going to make happen to you ("I'm going to find a girlfriend, I'm going to make lots of money ..."). I want you to purely focus on giving yourself a skill that would make you ever so slightly more interesting and valuable to other people.

Getty"Holy shit, by learning Spanish, I just gained the ability to speak to 400 million people I previously couldn't."

"I don't have the money to take a cooking class." Then fucking Google "how to cook." They've even filtered out the porn now, it's easier than ever. Damn it, you have to kill those excuses. Or they will kill you.

If you want to make note of your project in the forum thread or the comments and check in this time next year, knock yourself out. I'll be curious to see if even one person actually does this, but if so we'll look back, not just on whether or not we actually followed through, but why. You have nothing to lose, and the world needs you. Here's a video of a corgi rolling down some stairs.

Dave is the executive editor of Cracked.com and the best-selling author of This Book is Full of Spiders, a ludicrous tale of horror that contains a 50-page preview of his upcoming novel in the paperback edition.

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